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Who Is Art Schop?

Cult alternative rock icon Art Schop uses the rock album as a canvas for exploring philosophical and human themes through words and music. “I love songs,” Art says, “And connecting songs to a bigger, more complex context, that really inspires me.” His most recent album “Death Waits I: Music And Fine Arts” takes inspiration from a wide range of contemporary and historical figures including David Bowie, Lou Reed, Will Oldham, Michelangelo, Giacometti, Sappho and more.

Art Schop’s poetry and song-craft is reminiscent of Leonard Cohen and Scott Walker – no word or thought ever goes astray. The same kind of care goes into the multi-layered musical arrangements, which reveal more with each listen. As Bryce Goggin, the legendary producer of Pavement, Phish, and Antony and the Johnsons describes it: “Death Waits I is a mixture of Murder Ballads, Songs From A Room, and Hunky Dory.”

Art Schop is the alter-ego of singer-songwriter, writer, philosopher and technologist, Martin G. Walker. When Walker began deviating from the standard singer-songwriter idiom and started writing songs about ideas and people that struck deeply into the human condition, he created a new voice, the voice of Art Schop (the name a reference to Walker’s favorite philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer.) Influenced musically and lyrically by the likes of Scott Walker, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, Nick Cave, The Tindersticks, Pink Floyd and Bonnie Prince Billy, Art Schop incorporates a diverse array of classic and contemporary rock and experimental sonic elements into his music.